The entire family supports Nvidia Optimus technology, which automatic switching on and off the GPU so that it runs only when needed.

The GeForce 400M series can also deliver stereoscopic 3D images for games, movies and photos when configured with Nvidia 3D Vision glasses and a 3D display.

"The GeForce 400M Series takes the award-winning Fermi architecture across a complete line-up of DirectX 11 GPUs for notebook," said Rene Haas, general manager of notebook GPUs at Nvidia. "Coupled with Optimus technology, 400M Series notebook GPUs deliver great performance for visual computing applications when you need it, and great battery life when you don't."

Current vendors integrating the new GPU into their notebooks include Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba.

Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.

They will only be used whilst using serious 3d stuff like games and 3d apps, and I think that people usually do their work/gaming at places where there is a socket available. Even then the gt 420m will do just fine without one, I think.

nevertellYay, hope I can get some of those CHEAP! I'd like a notebook with which I can crack wpa2 in 15 minutes.

... What, your cracker uses OpenCL or CUDA? What does that have to do with a GPU update?

Congrats to Nvidia, will be interesting to see what they're actually capable of and what the pricetag will be. Also, as Optimus enables the GPU to switch off, well... Switch off to what? An Intel IGP will be there as well?

The inclusion of Optimus is no surprise given the relatively power-hungry nature of these chips, but doesn't that add to the price of implementation when you need another graphics chip in there to switch over to? Or am I missing something?

Just in time for AMD to release the second wave of Radeon Mobility DX11 cards this fall(6xxx series). Playing catch-up is a bitch which is probably why these are not just rebranded parts. Nvidia has proven time and time again that they require a strong competitor or they stop innovating and start stagnating um cough rebranding(GTS 240 aka 9800 GT aka 8800 GT). I hope AMD doesn’t let up as we should get some good competition in 2011 which is good for everyone.

FoShizzleDizzleThese mobile GPUs will go well with their battery life of about 10 minutes.

Battery Life? LOL. Who plays games on battery? Are you really on a plane tearing through a single-player campaign of Modern Warfare 2?

The enthusiast laptop products are for high-end laptops that are more about transportability than mobility. Its a lot easier to take a 15-pound, 17-inch laptop and power-brick to a LAN party than it is a 40-pound steel case with a 24-inch LCD monitor.

Still, for the price, I would stick with a desktop. I mean, seriously, how many LAN parties are people going to these days that they need a $2500+ laptop solely for gaming?